Could you possibly believe that that will be groups of people that would make a decision to learn one of the most intricate languages? Well, believe it or not, though we can say that this is indeed possible in these times already, people particularly in Kansas University have increased its number of students because they learn Chinese language.

Image via Wikipedia

Just as Daisy Wakefield posted, “the student-led board of Chinese Students and Scholars Friendship Association at Kansas University is structured more like a business than a student group.” This is incredible information for an educational institution in America

Very interesting, isn’t it? Wakefield even detailed how students from China who are studying in Kansas University have increased from 233 in 2005 to more than 900 in 2011. To rank it in percentage, there are approximately 41 percent of all international students at KU. In fair view to this, the Chinese Students and Scholars Friendship Association is considered to be the largest foreign student group in the university. How’s that for a language influence?

Do you know that “among the top 10 nations sending students to KU, the number of students coming from China is rising much more quickly than any other nation? In fact, detailed by the author, KU is not alone in the Chinese students’ invasion in America’s universities. Other universities across the United States have been invaded by students from China as well. In general, the increasing trend among this incursion increased in more than 100 percent.

“Globalization has allowed the common Chinese person to broaden their perspectives on different types of education. Along with that, the economy in China has improved significantly in recent years, so that many families have the resources to send their children abroad for study,” says Yong Bai, one of KU’s faculty advisers to the Chinese students.

One of the Chinese students named YuQi Gao is actually not very wealthy, but his parents sent him to a school like KU. “The reason I came here is because in China, a student’s life is very intense. There is no leisure time — only studying and preparing for exams. I wanted to be able to learn real skills in my education, rather than just studying to pass exams.”

You see, students in KU who have not passed the TOEFL must pass a standardized English test before beginning their academic coursework. Until they do, they must take classes at the Applied English Center at KU. That is one advantage that Chinese immigrants are taking advantage of— that some foreign language schools are also preparing for them.

June has always been a much-awaited month to all men, especially to all the fathers all over the world. Why? Because June is the month to which Father’s Day is acknowledged. Though some countries celebrate Father’s Day on May, July, August, September, October, and November, still Father’s Day is the day to which fathers are honored by celebrating their paternity and roles as fathers in the society.

As persons who want to acknowledge Father’s Day this June 20th, you can think of numerous ways to recognize it. You could treat your Dad in his favorite restaurant, go fishing with him in his favorite lake, or just simply hand a letter to him that greets his day in a simple but exceptional way. In this regard, you could think of saying “Happy Father’s Day” in different languages. Here are the lists of different translations as follows.

Albanian: Gëzuar ditën e babait
Armenian: Բարի հայրերու օր:
Arabic: كل عيد أب وأنت بخير
Belarusian: Шчаслівы Дзень бацькі
Bulgarian: Честит Ден на бащата
Catalan: Feliç Dia
Chinese: 父亲节快乐
Croatian: Sretan Očev dan
Czech: Happy Den otců
Danish: Happy Fars dag
Dutch: De gelukkige Dag van Vaders
Finland: Hyvää Isänpäivää
French: Jour de pères heureux
German: Gl¨¹cklicher Vatertag
Greek: χρόνια πολλά
Hebrew: האב המאושר של היום
Hindi:हैप्पी पिता का दिवस
Hungarian: Boldog apák napját
Icelandic: Hamingjusamur faðirinn’s Day
Indonesian: Selamat hari ayah
Italian: Giorno di padri felice
Japanese: 幸せな父の日
Korean: 해피 아버지의 �
Latvian: Tēva diena
Persian: روز پدر مبارک
Polish: Wszystkiego najlepszego z okazji dnia ojca
Portuguese: Dia de pais feliz
Brazilian Portuguese: Feliz dia dos pais
European Portuguese: Feliz dia do pai
Romanian: Ziua Tatălui
Russian: Счастливый день отцов
Serbian: Срећан Очево дан
Slovak: Všetko najlepšie ku dňu otcov
Spanish: Feliz Dia del Padre
Swedish: Grattis på farsdagen
Tamil: Thanthaiyar Thina NalvaazhththukkaL
Turkish: Babalar günü kutlu olsun
Urdu: یوم والد مبارک

These variations are based on online translators, so if you find some of these words erroneous, feel free to comment or correct them. Likewise, if you know other languages prior to these mentioned, feel free to add up as well. We are aiming to reach the number of 50 languages, so just adjoin in your choice of language.

An Asian decided to go to Europe for the purpose of enrolling in a Language School. After finishing her Bachelor course, she decided to learn a language abroad. It’s going to be her first time away from her parents, friends, and native country. She will go to a place where everything will be so new to her: the culture, the people she will mingle with, and the group of foreign people she will soon work with. She believes that enrolling in a Language School will help her get out from her shell—the shell of intimidation and immaturity.

Can you relate to this? To those people who will go abroad for employment or educational purposes, they will certainly undergo cultural and lingual adjustments. Traveling abroad may be enjoyable to many, but to some this is a whole new challenge, especially if they never had any experiences in other countries. Like the new graduate you read from the previous paragraph, she decided to enroll in a Language School abroad to break her language barrier. Language Schools are prepared to help students that undergo this culture shock and help them adapt to their new surroundings. These is why many schools provide a great variety of courses that can satisfy the needs of different people.

Out Italian Language School in Viareggio makes learning languages possible to the elderly. It organizes Italian Courses for Seniors dedicated to mature people of all ages. The mentioned course is visualized for learners to study several cultural activities, including free guided tours to different main sights on selected times throughout the week. Through this, learners can have fun in a pleasing and relaxing environment while learning Italian languages. This is also one way of getting to know other people and meet new set of friends.

If all language schools will promote not just the excellence of language learning but also the adjustments and comfort of every learner, they will certainly persuade aspiring students to enroll in their respective language schools. Likewise, if learners are satisfied with the schools’ accommodation, they will surely recommend this language school to his or her friends, word of mouth is the best marketing strategy. In that way, the school’s credibility will increase, and more learners will be encouraged to learn languages. And the best of it, Language Schools aid learners in their maturity and development, thus helping individuals become better persons.

The world is composed of thousands of languages. Each nation possesses an official language and contains multiple sublanguages, dialects, and vernaculars. Nonetheless, several of these numerous languages are becoming or considered as extinct already. An extinct language is considered such when it loses native speakers already. Eventually, it becomes dead when a certain language is in the process of replacement from one language to another. An example sited from Wikipedia is the Native American languages replaced by English, French, Portuguese, or Spanish.

Knowing the fact that languages could really die and become extinct opens a great possibility that even the most commonly used language today, once it will not be used any longer could have the same fate like the rest of the considered extinct or dead languages. Here are the lists of some of the extinct languages globally:

In Africa:

• Kwadi (Angola)
• Yeni (Cameroon)
• Horo (Chad)
• Esuma (Cote d’Ivoire)
• Ancient Egyptian (Egypt)
• Sened (Tunisia)
• Singa (Uganda)

In Asia:

• Jurchen (China)
• Silla language (Korea)
• Yugh language (Siberia)
• Akar-Bale (India)
• Arwi (Sri Lanka)
• Sabaean (Arabia)
• Hurran (Mesopotamia)

In America

• Newfoundland Irish (Canada)
• Greenlandic Norse (Greenland)
• Tepecano (Mexico)
• Northern and Southern Costanoan (U.S.)
• Saraveca (Bolivia)
• Arua (Brazil)
• Mochica (Peru)
• Maipure (Venezuela)

In Europe:

• Gaulish (France)
• Latin (Italy)
• Germanic and Celtic languages (British Isles)
• Tartessian (Iberian Peninsula)

As these dead languages were detailed, you probably have not known most of these. Of course, these are not known to you because they are basically unused, that’s why they’re considered dead. Imagine the possibility that Spanish, French, English, or even Mandarin languages might not be used anymore, fifty or one hundred years from now. The modern languages of today would probably be just a part of language history in the future, considering the fate of the itemized languages above.

But there’s hope for extinct languages. There’s this recent news regarding a software company that helps in reviving “sleeping” or dead languages particularly, the Chitimacha tribe, a certain group of people residing in the wetlands of Louisiana. This tribe has only more than a thousand speakers but has tried to revive their language for several years already. It says in that news that the last speaker died in 1940.

The company’s goal in creating this software is to retain cultural identity. Aside from the Chitimacha tribe, they’re planning to have the same language project to Navajo, a language still spoken by thousands of people, but declining in numbers.

To desire this kind of objective will gradually restore extinct languages. There is indeed hope for dead languages since modern technology opens the doors for it. Yet, let us not wait for the time that globalization will take the possibilities in language extinction. Bear in mind that a language will not die unless spoken by numbers of people. Speakers of a particular language will determine the life of their own native tongue.

Languages are the basic tools for communication and without knowledge of languages aside of one’s own, a person may have a hard time communicating and understanding other people. Better communication with a wider scope of people and cultures is one of the main reasons why language learning is widespread and why more people are engaged with it.

There are many immigrant parents in the United States who are going out of their comfort zones and are learning English – the main language of the United States. One of those parents who came from another country who are learning English is Yolanda Nicasio. She has many reasons for learning English but her best reason and motivation is her children. Yolanda wants to become fluent in English so that she will be able to help her children with homework, for setting doctor’s appointments, and for better communication whenever they go to a store. She has been taking English classes at Jackson Elementary School in Utah for almost a month.

Voices for Utah Children, a non-profit advocacy group supports the immigrant families in Utah by helping them integrate into their new homes and the new culture around them. Offering immigrant families more opportunities to learn English helps them to better support their families.

Terry Haven, the Kids Count Director at Voices for Utah Children said that there’ a lot of misconception about the immigrant community. The reality with most immigrant families in the US is that they are look a lot like the locals and in some ways, have stronger families. However, statistics show that Utah children who live in immigrant families are less likely to have parents who graduated from high school and more than twice a likely to live in poverty as children who are born to non-immigrant parents.

The key that might help immigrants to reverse some of the statistics is the learning of the English language. Children of immigrant parents who speak English are not much more likely to live in poverty than children born into non-immigrant families. The statistical report also recommends that more opportunities to learn English be made available to immigrant parents.

Senior research economist at the University of Utah, Pam Perlich, has agreed that teaching immigrants and their children the English language to better not only their personal welfare but also to the state and the country’s being. Perlich also said that it can be more difficult for many Utah immigrants who come from East Asia and Africa to learn English compared to those who arrived generations before from European countries with languages that are similar to English.

Sarah Little, the coordinator of the English Skills Learning Center parent program attended by Yolanda Nicasio and almost one hundred sixty-five adults said that parents mainly say that they want to learn English to help their children.

One of the volunteer English teachers at the center, Eileen Meiners, said that one of the English learners, a Somali woman even refused a translator when it came time for her parent-teacher conferences at her child’s school. She wanted to communicate by herself in the English language. The Somali woman is so proud of herself and the center is so proud of her.

It is not surprising that many people from different parts of the world are learning languages which are very different from their native tongues. Having knowledge of various languages are proven to be very useful not only for educational and leisure purposes but for business reasons as well.

In Harare, Zimbabwe, Pedzisayi Mashiri, the director of the Confucius Institute at the University of Zimbabwe has called on to the Chinese community to learn local Zimbabwean languages if they want to make more progress with their business ventures in the country. Mashiri has said that it would be proper for Chinese business people to learn the local languages since this could help communicate with the locals easier.

Although Zimbabwe has high literacy levels, there are some locals who cannot speak languages other than their native ones. So, even when the Chinese can speak English, they may find communication difficult in some parts of the country.

“Since we are learning the Chinese language in Zimbabwe, I think to strengthen the inter-cultural communication it would be proper for them to also try to learn local languages such as Shona and Ndebele,” Mashiri said.

The Confucius Institute is a non-profit public institute which aims to propagate and expand the learning of Chinese language and culture and supporting local Chinese teaching internationally through affiliated Confucius Institutes. The Confucius Institute offers demand driven courses for people who are either in business or politics.

The Confucius Institute at the University of Zimbabwe was established in 2007 and is a vehicle for expansion and also strengthens the relationship between China and Zimbabwe. It is the eighty-fifth Confucius Institute in the world and was jointly built by the Office of Chinese Language Council International and the university.

At the moment the relationship of both China and Zimbabwe is excellent and the relationship is secured through a long history in various fields. At present, due to having language as a vehicle for intercultural communication, the relationship between both countries has been consolidated because the institute now receives post graduate scholarships for their students.

Since 2007, the institute has sent seven students from the University of Zimbabwe who are studying for their PhDs in various fields such as linguistics, engineering, psychology, and theater and through that kind of educational program, the relationship between the two countries has strengthened more.

If the Chinese would really want to expand their businesses and cultural interests in other parts of the world, it is essential that they learn the local languages of the places where they want to expand. It is good to know that people are not the only ones learning Chinese but that the Chinese are learning other languages too!

Thanks to researchers at the University of East Anglia in England, you may not be able to get away with cursing at those security cameras in the break room anymore.

Recent breakthroughs in the technology of lip reading have led to the development of software that can translate facial and lip movements directly into text. For those of us who used to take out our silent frustrations on the security cameras in hallways or elevators, this may come as a bit of bad news.

But researchers and engineers say the new technology has a world of applications, including use by those who have problems writing, or are physically incapable of typing or holding a pen. Not only can the software determine what you’re saying based on the movements of your mouth, but it has also been designed to take different languages into account.

Creators say the programs can decipher up to nine languages currently, including English, Polish, Arabic, German, Russian, Mandarin, Cantonese, Italian, and French, with more languages on the way.

What may seem like bad news for those in the translation business could be a huge breakthrough for the rest of us. Conceivably, this could mean that the software could be paired with translation software to allow real time communication between two parties that speak different languages.

The program uses a map of an individual’s face to recognize signature movements that are made when certain words are pronounced. This could mean a future breakthrough in the way we learn languages, by way of demonstrations on computers to pronounce certain words. Imagine sitting down in front of a computer screen that has an image of your face, pronouncing difficult to speak words. You could then mimic the movements in an effort to improve your accent and fluidity.

Though researchers say there are still numerous bugs to fix before a perfected version is available, they are also quick to point out the many potential uses, including security applications and use by the military.

As the new software is still in preliminary stages of development, no release date for any public version is expected any time soon.

This post was contributed by Claire Webber, who writes about the best online schools. She welcomes your feedback at Claire.Webber1223 at gmail.com